Defining 2022-23 Sixers questions: Truly ‘built for the playoffs’ this time? originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
The 2022-23 Sixers will start their season on Sept. 27 in Charleston, South Carolina.
Before training camp begins, we’re looking at questions that will define the team’s season and ultimately determine whether the Sixers advance past the second round of the playoffs for the first time since 2001.
We’ve examined whether the Sixers can win the turnover battle and solve their rebounding problem.
Next up: Are the Sixers truly “built for the playoffs” this time?
Joel Embiid has made five postseason appearances with the Sixers. In four of them, he’s been sidelined for at least one game by injury.
Embiid and the Sixers were swept the one occasion he suited up for every game, concluding a mostly miserable stay in the NBA’s Disney World bubble with a thorough first-round loss to the Celtics.
After Brett Brown had insisted throughout the season the Sixers were “built for the playoffs,” that year was his last as head coach. Though Ben Simmons’ season-ending left knee injury was significant, the Sixers certainly did not play like a team that merited such a label. But two seasons and two second-round defeats later, might the Sixers live up to it?
One simple and reasonable way to answer the question is, “Yes, because they’re deeper.” With P.J. Tucker, De’Anthony Melton and Danuel House Jr. aboard, there’s a good chance head coach Doc Rivers will feel better about his bench options than last playoffs. After Game 3 of the Sixers’ Round 2 loss to the Heat, Rivers acknowledged that, in his eyes, none of Matisse Thybulle, Furkan Korkmaz and Shake Milton had earned a stable role yet.
“Guys like Shake and Furk and even Matisse, they’re going to keep changing,” Rivers said. “And every coach in the NBA would say, ‘I would love to have an eight-man rotation where we do it every night.’ Well, that’s not up to the coach. That’s up to the players to define the roles so well that you never want to change. But when you don’t have that, you have to be willing to keep changing, keep moving those three around. And that’s what we’re doing.
“It’s not one thing one guy is doing over the other. It’s every night you look at the team, you look at the game, and you look at how one (player) can help you in this game and then one can help you in the next game, because no one’s really taken that role over….